He persists.
“It’s quite common, Jan. Invisible handcuffs. Ruled by fear. The poor kids are deep in it. That’s why they can’t run Jan. They’re threatened. Violence, prosecution, even death. It’s much more complex than just walking away.”
Everything seems complex with Damien.
“I know. Of course I know. I’ve worked on domestic violence cases. But I was just really unfair to Lisa. On top of everything she’s had to endure. I just made it worse.”
He moves closer.
“Don’t be too hard on yourself. Aiden?”
“It shouldn’t interfere with my job.”
“It’s normal, Jan. Working with people. Always different from stolen money or cars or TVs. But that’s what I’m here for, to help with working people out.”
I don’t want his help, but somehow I know I need it on this case.
“Thanks.”
“No problem. Let’s get on now and find that kid. But if we’re going to work together in the future, we need to have a big heart-to-heart sometime soon.”
He gets out of the car. Lisa’s still sobbing under her breath. I go for the information I need from her. The slight diversion into Lisa’s reasoning has her on my side now. We know each other. At least I know that this will be the truth.
“Do you know where Christine’s house is from here?”
She nods. Lorraine appears at the window.
“No, Jan. We need to take her to the rape investigation unit. We need to get her somewhere safe.”
Lisa holds onto my arm.
“No. I want to finish this. I want to help you find that girl. At least I’ll have done something right then.”
Lorraine thinks for a moment, then nods and goes back to her car. Lisa’s hand is still on my arm, and I move toward her. No words pass between us, but I hug her to my chest, her huge sobs silenced into my neck. I hold her for a long moment and feel her hands tighten around my arms. We’re not so different after all.
After a moment I let go. I almost say that I’m sorry, sorry for giving her a hard time, sorry for doubting her. Sorry for not understanding. But I see from her eyes that no words are needed.
“So can you tell me where Christine’s house is?”
She wipes her eyes.
“45 Pit Lane. If you take the next right, then left, then through the center of the village, take a left up toward the hills, and it’s two miles out, set back.”
“Can you show me? You don’t have to if you don’t want to. I can get Lorraine to take you to the station.”
“No. I’ll show you. It’ll be easier. You wouldn’t know where to turn off otherwise, it would take you ages to find. You haven’t asked me how I know she’s there.”
I start the car and the playlist comes on. We both listen for a while as Ellie Goulding sings about loving someone forever. We drop into the village, past Lovers Lane, past the school, past the Sommers’. Past the co-op. Lisa points at a block of flats.
“That’s where I lived.”
I turn to see a gated complex.
“I knew it would be near. We had you on CCTV at the co-op. Bread receipt in your pram.”
“So you looked for me?”
“We were worried.”
She sighs.
“Touching.”
I speed past the Prices’ house and past Joanie’s house.
“So how did you know for sure? How did you know it was her? The visual of her in the picture was unclear.”
She turns away, muttering at me. I wonder if she’s crying.
“I never forget a face. But it was the angel. The one hanging on her dashboard. She makes them herself. She’s got lots of them in her house.”
We listen some more. Adele’s soulful voice soothes us, but I can feel the atmosphere change in the car as we near the turning. I check my mirror, and Damien’s close behind. I signal, and we turn off the road and park. Lorraine is talking on her phone, trying to get backup and we wait. It’s a good chance to find out more from Lisa.
“So how did you manage to get that message out? And why couldn’t you phone?”
“There are no landlines.”
I think back to my recon of Charleston House. She’s right. No visible phone lines to the house. Unlikely to be cable so far out in the sticks.
“But we called before we came. On a landline.”
She snorts.
“It’s a massive operation. Brian Jameson has stuff going on everywhere. The club. The flats. All there to make everything look normal to hopeless cases like me. Losers.”
“Even losers don’t deserve that.”
She ignores me and carries on.
“I sneaked down in the early morning when I thought there would be no one around. I just went into the office and sent it. I knew someone would have found the playlist when I saw you lot had Elise. Hoped, anyway. Hoped there were good people who knew what it meant.”
“Wasn’t the door locked?”
She half turns in the seat and winces.
“There are no locks. None of the doors are locked. But who would risk their lives? We all knew the score. Except Emily.”
“The girl who got shot. What happened to her?”
“She was dead. In front of us. And all the men there. No one batted an eyelid.”
Lorraine and Damien are heading over now for the final briefing. But my mind’s distracted. Shot. These bastards aren’t messing around. They’re armed, and Mike’s on his way over there.
Chapter 30
My hand goes to my pocket, and I get Mike on speed dial. It goes to voice mail.
“Mike. Don’t go in there without backup. Repeat. Get backup before approaching. They’re armed.”
I end the call and look at Damien and Lorraine.
“He’s gone up there, and they’re armed.”
Lorraine touches my arm.
“Leave it to Mike. He’s an experienced officer. Got to do this now.”
She glances up the lane. The cottage is just visible, set back against the quarry on one side, but to the back, the moorland extends outward toward the Pennines proper. I nod.
“Yeah. Lorraine, you stay here with Lisa. Damien and I will go in.”
Lisa protests.
“No. I’m coming with you. I know the layout of the house. She showed me round.”
“You can stay here, Lisa, but you need to wait outside in the car. We need to be careful. Everyone put their phones on silent. We’ll have a recon first, then knock on the door.”
Damien pauses for a moment.
“Remember the Sommers? Didn’t they say in their statement that it was a man and a woman who picked Lewis up? So there might be more than one person here.”
I nod.
“Good point. So we’ll be extra observant and extra careful. We know Dara’s here or has been here. So look for any sign of her.”
We get back in our respective cars and drive right up to the cottage, slightly past it, and park at the far end of the turning circle behind some trees. It’s bigger than it looks from the road. There are two outbuildings and a medium-size barn directly behind the cottage. It couldn’t be prettier, with clematis climbing up the front walls and ivy around the sides like icing. There’s a neatly kept garden at the front.
I check the lane for tire tracks. People have been here fairly recently. There’s a single phone wire feeding from the telegraph pole on the road to the left-hand side of the house. No cameras and no alarms.
Damien and I go around the side of the house, and I pull the barn door open. And there it is. The white van, complete with an angel spinning from the rearview mirror. I pull the driver’s door open and look inside. Styrofoam cups. A woolen bobble hat. A baby blanket. I can just about see a dummy stuffed down the side of the passenger seat. A packet of white sugar mice on the dashboard, open with some missing.
I shut the door and we leave the barn.
Lisa and Lorraine are waiting in the car. I push the white picket fence gate open and it
bangs shut behind Damien and me before I realize it’s spring loaded. I knock hard on the door. Lorraine signals to me that she’s seen movement inside the house. I open the letter box.
“Hello. Police. Can you come to the door, please?”
There’s nowhere for her to go. If she left by the back door she’d have to either climb the quarry face or run across open moorland. I knock hard on the door again. No answer. I peer through the leaded windows, past the fresh flowers in the window, and see a lounge furnished in light pastels. Hardly a good color scheme for a nursery. I turn and walk up the path.
“I’ll go round the back. You stay here in case she tries to leave by the front.”
I walk the other way around and arrive at the back door via a vegetable garden. There are tubs of lupines and daisies, and I wonder for a moment if we’ve got the right house. This doesn’t fit the profile of a baby snatcher. Of a hardened criminal. I have the sick feeling in my stomach again, wondering if we’ve made a mistake and she is, in fact, just a babysitter.
I reach the back door. There are two thick panes of clear glass, and I see a huge wood-block refectory table and an Aga stove. There are two bowls of fruit and a Belfast sink. The floor appears to be scrubbed pine covered with colorful rag rugs. I push down the handle, and the door opens.
I tiptoe into the kitchen, and directly in front of me, mounted above the door and overlooking the room, is a wooden angel. It’s carved out of hardwood in the same shape as the paper angels we had found. The angel wears a sweet smile. I look around the kitchen. There’s a plate of heart-shaped biscuits on a Welsh dresser and bowls of boiled sweets all around the room. But no Christine.
I hear a noise. A small squeak coming from the lounge. I follow the noise, and I see a small blonde girl sitting on a sheepskin rug in front of the fireguard. The fire is lit, and there’s half a mug of coffee on the mantelpiece, still steaming. I pick her up, and she looks at me.
“Can we go home?”
I nod at her and hold her tightly.
“Are you OK?”
“Mummy. I want my mummy.”
I take her to the front door. I stand behind it for a moment, breathing the moment in. She appears to be healthy. We’ve found her. Then I open the door and Lorraine rushes forward from the car.
“Oh, thank god. Oh, Jan. Is she OK?”
I hand her to Lorraine. I can see the relief on Damien’s face. I speak quietly.
“She’s fine. But Christine is somewhere in the house. You take her back to the station. Make sure Mike has got backup now. Damien and I will deal with her.”
They hurry to the car, and Lisa looks back at me. She breaks away from Lorraine and faces me.
“What’ll happen to me now?”
I look at her. She’s round shouldered and bedraggled.
“Lorraine will take you to the station. You need to be seen by the rape investigation unit, maybe the hospital. Is that OK, Lisa? It’s our best chance of finding those bastards and bringing them to justice for what they did to you.”
I look at Lorraine, and she nods.
“We’ll need statements from you.”
Lisa bows her head.
“Will I be charged?”
I take a deep breath.
“I don’t know, Lisa. I’ll have to consult with my colleagues. I have to play it down the line.”
She nods.
“Well, I just wanted to say thanks. You know. For Elise.”
I still prickle. It’s all tied around my feelings about Aiden, my mother love and how much I’m hurting. It’s not for now. They leave, and Damien and I go back inside the house. He comes close to me and whispers.
“She’ll think we’ve gone with them. She’ll come out.”
I shake my head.
“No. She knows we’re here. She’s hiding somewhere. You stay here and watch the doors. I’ll look upstairs. If you hear anything, let me know.”
I turn and pad softly up the stairs. There are four bedrooms and a wet room. I look in the wet room first. Nowhere to hide in there. I open the bedroom doors one by one and see a double bed in one room and a single in the others. I check all the wardrobes, but I sense she isn’t here. The house is silent. I stand on the landing and look around for the loft hatch. Has she had enough time to get up there?
There’s no way I can reach it. Damien would have to find a ladder, and he’s much taller than me. I see him standing at the bottom of the stairs looking out for me. I shake my head at him and start down the stairs.
“She must be here somewhere. She has nowhere else to go. She couldn’t have got out.”
I push the front door shut with my foot. Looking around the room, I see it’s decorated with pink-and-peach wallpaper. All the furniture matches, and the handles of all the drawers and all the cupboards are brass heart shapes.
All the floors in the house are solid wood covered with mats, and they creak when they are walked on. We’d hear her moving about if she was in the main body of the house.
I go back into the kitchen and Damien follows me. There’s a pantry in the corner, just big enough for a smallish woman to hide in. I open the door quickly, but she isn’t in there. Damien moves closer to look at the contents of the shelves.
There are packs of hypodermic syringes, dozens of sample bottles, and little plastic containers to bundle the containers together. There are some sets already assembled at the front of the middle shelf, and I lift one out. Damien runs his fingers through his hair.
“What the fuck?”
I pass the container to him.
“What is it? What do you think it is?”
He shakes his head.
“Blood samples. Urine samples. Some kind of test.”
On the top shelf I find packs of surgical gloves and gauze. Boxes of sticking plasters and tape. Antiseptic wipes. Rolls of surgical tape. Face masks.
I open a drawer and see a selection of stainless steel surgical implements. Cannulas in boxes and a drip stand behind the door. I shut the drawer quickly. Hanging on the back of the door are two lab coats, sparkling white. And a set of surgical gowns. I back out and shut the door and call ops. Stan answers in two rings.
“Hi Stan. Look, Lorraine is on her way in with Dara.”
“You’ve found her? Nice one, Jan. Well done.”
“We have found her, and she seems to be OK, but we need SOCOs here. We haven’t found the perpetrator as yet. Damien and I are here at the moment. We’ll continue to have a look around until backup arrives.”
There’s a pause. I can hear his breath against the receiver.
“Just you and Damien? Where’s Mike and Jerry and the other two?”
“They went back to Charleston House. Greenfield. OL3. Didn’t he call for backup?”
I can hear him tapping the keys of the computer now, searching for Mike’s call for assistance.
“No. No one’s been sent yet. Mustn’t have found anything there.”
I nod into my phone.
“Any chance you can send backup? Just in case?”
He hesitates. I don’t put him on the spot because I know why.
“Yeah. OK. I’ll give him a call later.”
“Thanks, Jan. Great news about the girl. I’ll relay that to everyone.”
By “everyone,” he means Stewart. He’ll have to do that before he gets us backup. He will have had the same orders that I had, that Operation Hawk wasn’t supported until there was firm evidence about Dara Price. Now that there is, Stan can act.
Damien’s looking around the house.
“This place. It’s unusually perfect. Everything in its place. Not the kind of place where you would look after children. But she isn’t looking after them is she?”
I walk over to him.
“Where is she, Damien? We’ve looked everywhere. I’m running out of options.”
We have a last look around. SOCOs will be here in less than fifteen minutes, backup sooner, and I want to find her by then. Damien shakes his head.
“She could have got out. Through the back door?”
“But there’s no way out, except round the front. And Lorraine would have seen her.”
He sighs.
“Or across the moor. But again, we would have spotted her. She has the psychological advantage. A house like this, plenty of hidey holes we don’t know anything about, but she will know it like the back of her hand.”
I laugh.
“Well she couldn’t have got into the loft. Even you would have to find a ladder to get up there. She wouldn’t have had time to pull down a full loft ladder and pull it back up again. We would have heard her anyway.”
I shut the back door and lock it, removing the key and putting it in my pocket.
“She won’t be getting out that way.”
We exit through the front door and pull it half-closed behind us. Looking out over the garden, the cottage is idyllic. Chocolate box. Good enough to eat. The garden is beautifully manicured but has a meadow feel at the same time. I breathe in the summer air and wonder what the hell is going on here. Evil and beauty all together in one tragic setting.
Chapter 31
“The door is big enough; just look, I can get in myself!” and she crept up and thrust her head into the oven. Then she gave her a push that drove her far into it, and shut the iron door, and fastened the bolt. Oh! then she began to howl quite horribly, but the girl ran away, and the witch was miserably burnt to ashes. . . and as they had no longer any need to fear her, they went into the witch’s house, and in every corner there stood chests full of pearls and jewels.
I call Mike again. No answer. It rings out then goes to voice mail. I don’t leave a message. Damien’s bending over a rose bush, examining the label.
“Seems like she’s got herself a good collection of prize roses here. This garden’s worth a fortune.”
Small talk. That’s what we do when we know something is wrong. And something is very wrong here. I walk along the front of the house, looking out for SOCOs. Ten more minutes yet before they arrive. Backup should be here any minute. I kick at the loose gravel and stamp my feet on the Victorian stone slabs that pave a small patio area. I sit on the bench, then stand up again. Where is she? She must be here still. Unless she had left Dara alone. Why can I never believe that anyone would ever do that? I think about what Damien said about instinct. The connect-the-dots way we work, at odds with the precise rules I make for myself. Standards. Am I too hard on myself?
Playlist for a Paper Angel (DS Jan Pearce Crime Fiction Series Book 3) Page 21